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Monday, December 5, 2011

Moroccan Chicken Smothered in Olives

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...Let's face it, braises and stews are the ugly ducklings of the culinary circuit. Fortunately, great flavor masks their appearance and most folks include at least one braise or stew among their favorite dishes. Even the Silver Fox, who on finishing this lovely Moroccan chicken declared it to be, and I quote now, "a glorious mess." Now the Fox may not have made his money in the diplomatic corp, but he knows a good thing when he sees it and that was a rave review. I found the recipe while researching the work of Paula Wolfert. I needed just one recipe to represent her cooking for a feature on 50 Women Game-Changers in Food. I, instead, walked away with over a dozen that needed to be tried. One read of this recipe convinced me that this was something special and I made it for our dinner tonight. Mean weather made it all the more appealing and it is a perfect meal for a damp and chilly evening. This chicken is really easy to make, although the brining of the chicken adds a time factor that must be taken into account. I urge you not to bypass brining the chicken. It really makes a difference in this dish. The chicken stays moist and succulent and that moistness is a perfect foil for the Moroccan spices used in this dish. The chicken can be on the table within 45 minutes and you won't regret a moment of the time you spend making it. Here's the recipe.

Directions:1) To brine chicken (optional): In a large bowl, combine salt, sugar and 1 cup hot water. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Add 3 cups cold water and chicken pieces. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours. Drain, rinse, and drain again before using.2) In bottom of a large flameproof casserole, arrange onions and top with chicken pieces. Sprinkle with ginger, turmeric, cumin, paprika, garlic and cilantro. Pour chicken broth over all.3) Place over high heat to bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes, turning once. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, combine olives with several cups of water and bring to a boil. Boil 2 minutes, drain well and set aside.4) Add olives and lemon juice to chicken, and simmer uncovered for 10 minutes. If desired, simmer for additional time to reduce and thicken sauce. Serve hot. Yield: 4 servings.

This looks delicious, definitely not a mess! I need to try the brining method. I never have, but it makes sense that it would make a huge difference in how moist and succulent the meat is. This sounds like a great recipe, it looks wonderful and from your description it tastes even better! Have a lovely day :)

Sounds and looks delicious to me. However, if you really felt the need to improve the look upon presentation, it would look amazing if served in a tagine with decoratively displayed lemon slices on top!

The operative word here is "glorious"! I love the way ever bit of that sounds... right up to adding the olives! LOL! I think it would be delicious to me sans olives. ;) blessings and good cheer to you and yours this morning, Mary! tanna

Ha! I just made a lesser version of this recipe for a blogging challenge that I do with Dom @ Belleau Kitchen ... I am going to make it again using this recipe ... I just know the result will be superior!

It's funny because , as I was making the chicen, I was thinking that it needed more spice and wondering why I was leaving the skins on the thighs ... it made for a really fatty sauce that took away from the finished dish. Agian, your Wolfert recipe is far better!

I would encourage your readers to get to Whole Foods and see if they can find castelvetrano olives. They are a green olive in a very delicate brine. I'll bet they would bring a lot to this Moroccan party.

It looks good to me! I am printing this one out to warm us on a winter's day. I'll have to omit the cilantro (hope sprinkling it on when served will work) as The Baker does not like it at all. The rest of us do like it.

Well, this may be one of the finest messes I've seen in a long time. I do love Moroccan flavors - and made an easy version of a chicken-lemon "stew" last week which was declared a hit - nary a mouthful let. Winter has settled in and this will warm us all.

This sounds (and looks!) so good to me right now. This is a part of Mediterranean cuisine that I don't know enough about, and yet I just love all of its classic flavors. I look forward to trying this, thanks Mary.

OK, Mary. I'm in! Just linked to you via a comment you left for Cheryl at A Coastal Point of View. Where have you been all my life? Just a few peeks at former posts, and imagining today's Moroccan Chicken just might re-awaken my interest in cooking. My husband sure would be grateful..... I sure will be back.

Paula Wolfert, a name from my culinary beginnings. This chicken dish uses my favorite part of the bird and sounds simple and delicious. I'm surprised at the brine, given the use of olives, but trust you and Paula not to steer me wrong. I'm going to put this on next week's menu.

In this particular case the picture is superfluous to the title or the recipe! I barely even looked at the picture once I read the title and the ingredient list. This is a definite 'must do'! Thanks for sharing.

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